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Beloved

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Beloved (1998)

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Reviews Counted:66

Fresh:51

Rotten:15

Average Rating:7/10

Consensus: A powerful, emotional and successful film adaptation of the original novel.

Runtime: 2 hrs 52 mins

Genre: Dramas

Synopsis: With the startling, engrossing world of Beloved, director Jonathan Demme returns to the big screen following his Academy Award-winning work on The Silence of the Lambs and the emotional power of... With the startling, engrossing world of Beloved, director Jonathan Demme returns to the big screen following his Academy Award-winning work on The Silence of the Lambs and the emotional power of Philadelphia to craft a story of singular emotional impact. Academy Award nominee Oprah Winfrey stars with Danny Glover, Thandie Newton, Kimberly Elise and Beah Richards in this compelling story adapted from the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison. Beloved translates to the screen with its visceral daring intact, thoroughly immersing viewers in the haunting, haunted landscape of this story.

Oprah Winfrey, for whom Beloved is the ultimate labor of love, appears in her first starring feature film role since earning an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress in The Color Purple, with a performance of undeniable fearlessness. Winfrey optioned the rights to Beloved upon its publication and nurtured the project for nearly a decade, personally shepherding it to its current incarnation as one of the most anticipated motion picture events of the year.

Winfrey stars as Sethe, a woman of elemental grace and unspoken mystery. A figure of fierce determination, Sethe is a runaway slave struggling to carve out her own simple existence with her children in rural Ohio, 1873. Preventing her from achieving that, however, is the painful legacy of her former life, and the desperate measures to which she is driven to keep herself and her family from returning to it.

Danny Glover stars as Paul D, an old friend who comes to visit Sethe and whose understanding is tested by her household's shattering secrets. Kimberly Elise portrays Sethe's daughter, Denver, an embattled young woman who must free herself from the crippling grasp that her mother's choices have on her. And Thandie Newton is Beloved. As Beloved grows to become part of Sethe's family, her devastating presence threatens to destroy the delicate balance of Sethe and Denver's existence. [More]

Starring: Oprah Winfrey, Danny Glover, Thandie Newton, Kimberly Elise

Starring: Oprah Winfrey, Danny Glover, Thandie Newton, Kimberly Elise, Beah Richards, Lisa Gay Hamilton, Albert Hall, Irma P. Hall

Director: Jonathan Demme

Director: Jonathan Demme
Screenwriter: Akosua Busia, Richard LaGravenese, Adam Brooks
Producer: Jonathan Demme, Oprah Winfrey, Gary Goetzman, Edward Saxon, Kate Forte
Composer: Rachel Portman

[See More Credits]

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Release:

May 18, 1999

[DVD Details]
 
 
  • Beloved
  • Oprah Winfrey (THE COLOR PURPLE) and Danny Glover (LETHAL WEAPON IV, THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS) play the unforgettable lead roles in a powerful, widely acclaimed cinematic triumph from Jonathan Demme -- the Academy Award(R)-winning director of THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS. On a difficult journey to find freedom, Sethe (Winfrey) is constantly confronted by the secrets that have haunted her for years. Then, an old friend from out of her past (Glover) unexpectedly reenters her life. With his help, Sethe may finally be able to rediscover who she is and regain her lost sense of hope. Also featuring outstanding performances from Thandie Newton (GRIDLOCK'D) and Lisa Gay Hamilton (TV's THE PRACTICE) -- you'll agree with critics everywhere who've hailed this landmark adaptation of Toni Morrison's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel as one of the year's finest films!
  • Source: Buena Vista Home Entertainment.
  •  
     
     
     

    Reviews for Beloved

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    Demme masterfully exhibits both the harsh realities of the time with the unexplainable mystical world that settles in and around them like a fog, even if he has trouble making the two elements mesh.

    Full Review Source: Combustible Celluloid | comment Comment
    10/11/02
    Jeffrey M. Anderson
    Jeffrey M. Anderson
    Combustible Celluloid

    The film's success lies mainly in its fidelity to its source: It never tries to avoid or sidestep the madness Morrison so bravely embraced.

    Full Review Source: Sacramento Bee | comment Comment
    01/01/00
    Joe Baltake
    Joe Baltake
    Sacramento Bee

    The performances of all the central and secondary characters match the passionate intensity of the film's behind-the-scenes collaborators.

    Full Review Source: Austin Chronicle | comment Comment
    01/01/00
    Marjorie Baumgarten
    Marjorie Baumgarten
    Austin Chronicle

    A powerful and disturbing motion picture!

    Full Review Source: ReelViews | comment Comment
    01/01/00
    James Berardinelli
    James Berardinelli
    ReelViews
    Top Critic Icon Top Critic

    Okay, great performances, nice to look at -- but what this movie is missing is something to hold it together in the middle.

    Full Review Source: Jam! Movies | comment Comment
    02/27/04
    Liz Braun
    Liz Braun
    Jam! Movies

    Its spiritual messages, which are deep and true, redeem any structural flaws of this ambitious film.

    Full Review Source: Spirituality and Practice | comment Comment
    08/21/02
    Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat
    Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat
    Spirituality and Practice

    A movie of moments--moments of raw, lyrical emotional power scattered over a nearly three-hour time expanse.

    Full Review Source: TheMovieReport.com | comment Comment
    01/01/00
    Michael Dequina
    Michael Dequina
    TheMovieReport.com

    A vivid, bewildering folk art quilt of shadows, memories, silhouettes, reflections and hallucinations.

    Full Review Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel | comment Comment
    01/01/00
    Duane Dudek
    Duane Dudek
    Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

    I was sometimes confused about events as they happened, but all the pieces are there, and the film creates an emotional whole.

    Full Review Source: Chicago Sun-Times | comment Comment
    01/01/00
    Roger Ebert
    Roger Ebert
    Chicago Sun-Times
    Top Critic Icon Top Critic

    Like a great book, Beloved builds up, through accretion of detail, so much information and revelation that we begin to live the lives with these people.

    comment Comment
    01/01/00
    Bob Fenster
    Bob Fenster
    Arizona Republic
    Top Critic Icon Top Critic

    Has tough truths to tell about the differences between affection and possession, memory and nightmare, freedom and revenge -- truths that none of the performers involved shy away from.

    Full Review Source: eye WEEKLY | comment Comment
    01/01/00
    Gemma Files
    Gemma Files
    eye WEEKLY

    The core of Beloved is Winfrey's brave, utterly convincing portrayal of the rough-hewn Sethe.

    Full Review Source: Rochester Democrat and Chronicle | comment Comment
    01/01/00
    Jack Garner
    Jack Garner
    Rochester Democrat and Chronicle

    A dense, jangled cataclysm of enigma and outrage.

    comment Comment
    01/01/00
    Owen Gleiberman
    Owen Gleiberman
    Entertainment Weekly
    Top Critic Icon Top Critic

    Something rare: a brave film about the emotional toll of slavery, the anguish of memory and the cruel divisions that still sear African American lives.

    Full Review Source: San Francisco Chronicle | comment Comment
    06/18/02
    Edward Guthmann
    Edward Guthmann
    San Francisco Chronicle
    Top Critic Icon Top Critic

    It's heartfelt, praiseworthy and amazingly faithful to Toni Morrison's complex Pulitzer Prize-winning novel!

    comment Comment
    01/01/00
    Julie Hinds
    Julie Hinds
    San Jose Mercury News
    Top Critic Icon Top Critic

    Moves in leisurely fits and -- unencumbered by style or narrative complexity -- never loses its forward momentum.

    Full Review Source: Village Voice | comment Comment
    01/01/00
    J. Hoberman
    J. Hoberman
    Village Voice
    Top Critic Icon Top Critic

    Within Beloved lies a great movie with a powerful message, but its impact is muffled due to the filmmakers' indulgence and lack of restraint.

    Full Review Source: NUVO Newsweekly | comment Comment
    01/01/00
    Edward Johnson-Ott
    Edward Johnson-Ott
    NUVO Newsweekly

    ... the best movie of 1998...

    Full Review Source: Cinemaphile.org | comment Comment
    01/01/00
    David Keyes
    David Keyes
    Cinemaphile.org

    Filled with some of the most extraordinary images of recent years, Beloved was apparently too powerful for audiences to handle back in 1998.

    Full Review Source: Slant Magazine | comment Comment
    02/03/04
    Jeremiah Kipp
    Jeremiah Kipp
    Slant Magazine

    Demme's potent adaptation of Morrison's novel may be substantial, but it is also engrossing.

    Full Review Source: Globe and Mail | comment Comment
    04/12/02
    Liam Lacey
    Liam Lacey
    Globe and Mail
    Top Critic Icon Top Critic
     
     
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